Conflagration

A Sketchy Job

Galaxy: Darklands (dwarf galaxy)

Cluster: Nexus

Station: Gonaways

After leaving the Chief Pilot's office, Erin went to her locker and retrieved the small overnight bag she kept there. She had kept this packed overnight bag in her locker ever since she'd first been checked out to fly the hardpointer three months ago. Now, the day had finally come. She was the pilot in command of her own interstellar flight.

After retrieving her overnight bag, she went back to Flight Ops. There, she got a preflight briefing and manifest directly from one of the Flight Dispatch Office supervisors, a man named Rinjin Simon. The hardpointer Erin would be flying, tail number 788NC, would carry full tanks of fuel, 14,000kg of fuel between the three tanks. No one knew exactly how long the mission would take. One thing Noémie didn't want was for her to run low on fuel and have to purchase fuel from a competitor.

Additionally, the plane would carry a heavy-duty maintenance mech and a single cargo container full of airplane parts to repair the downed plane. The shipping container and the mech suit would ride as external payload, mounted to the hardpoints on the plane's back, which is why 788NC was called a "hardpoint freighter."

"Oh, you're gonna love this mechanic," Rinjin said with devious glee. "She's a real peach."

The mechanic's name was Alyssa Ruiz, according to the manifest. When Erin asked Rinjin to elaborate, he just evaded her questions. Great. I'm going to be stuck in a tin can for a week with this person, and he won't tell me what's wrong with her. Whatever. I'm a professional. I'll deal with it.

After she signed for 788NC in the computer system, Rinjin handed over the plane's control card and paired it to Erin's QSP. Now, the control card (and by extension the plane itself) would only work for Erin. Erin hated having a QuantumScale Processor in her body. The QSP was a network of subatomic particles working together as a computer inside her brain. It went against everything she'd been raised to believe. Besides, it was just creepy. But Noémie (like many companies) insisted that she have one if she wanted to fly the heavy metal. And Erin definitely wanted to fly the heavy metal.

Now, with control card, flight bag, and overnight bag in hand, Erin walked across the ramp past the rows of parked loaders. Loaders were a class of smaller, sublight-only spaceplane purpose-built for moving shipping containers around a spaceport. Loaders could be fun to fly in their own right, but today Erin was excited to get to fly a real airplane.

The hardpointer she was preparing to fly today resembled a traditional airplane, especially with its wings and empennage installed for atmospheric flight. Its cockpit was in the nose of the fuselage and its three massive main engines protruded from its tail in an inverted triangular arrangement. The length of the fuselage was studded with hardpoints for mounting shipping containers to the plane's exterior. Unlike traditional bulk freighters, the hardpointer had only a small internal baggage hold and instead carried its cargo as external payload. The interior of the fuselage was little more than a housing for the three massive engines, the cockpit, and spartan living quarters for crew on long-haul flights. The hardpoint freighter was equipped with graviton thrusters in its belly and could normally take off vertically like an ancient helicopter. But not today. Today's flight was unusual.

Normally, hardpointers were flown without their wings or empennages installed. They typically take off without freight and then are loaded in space. Once a hardpointer is covered with an array of dozens of interlocking shipping containers, the plane enters transtachyonic flight towards its destination. Because 788NC would have the added weight of its aerodynamic structures and the freight it carried, it would be too heavy to take off vertically. Today's flight, therefore, was very unusual and Erin felt appropriately lucky to have gotten it.

At nearly every loader gate Erin passed, some pilot was preflighting one of the short-range container movers. More than a few cast envious, spiteful glances in her direction. She ignored them. Let them whisper about her. Let them call her a plane burner. Today, she was taking a transtach-capable hardpointer out on an interstellar rescue mission. Let all those scrubs wallow in their jealousy. Erin wouldn't even give them the satisfaction of a gloating glance. Have fun moving containers around the local space today, guys.

As she was passing one of the loaders, the pilot who was preflighting it, Fionn Oswald, stopped what he was doing and approached her. Fionn was one of the few pilots on the flight line Erin actually liked. He was tall, thin, and handsome with a nice, well-groomed beard and gray eyes. Unlike most of the other pilots, he had always been kind to her. He also outranked her in seniority. I hope he's not salty about me getting this charter over him, she thought. She would hate to lose the closest thing she had to a friend.

"Erin," Fionn said, "I hear you're taking that hardpointer out to rescue Rad."

"Yeah..." Erin answered cautiously. "You know the pilot?"

"A little. Met him a few times. He works outta the maintenance hub over at Regulation Crossing. Test pilot. Kind of a bro, but a decent enough dude. Real good pilot."

"Hey, look, Fionn...about them giving this assignment to me, I never asked them to bypass seniority. It came from the guild."

"Yeah, that's what I want to talk to you about. Before they offered the job to you, they called me and Cal Branch both in and offered it to us. At first I said 'yes,' but then Yamashita⁠—he was there in person, I shit you not⁠—scooted his chair real close to me and asked me if I was absolutely sure that I wanted to take the job. The guy was creepy-intense. I knew he wanted me to say 'no' so I turned down the job. Cal said pretty much the same happened to him."

"Yamashita was there when I was in the office too. I know what you mean about him being creepy-intense. He strongly encouraged me to take the job. I was wondering why they didn't offer it to you guys first, since you're both senior to me."

"They did offer it to us. Then, they encouraged us to turn it down. Something about this job is making my bullshit detector go crazy, Erin. Why is it so important to Yamashita that you specifically take it?"

"I don't know," Erin admitted. It wasn't just because she could be compelled to keep her mouth shut about whatever illegal stuff Capt. Elof was doing. Almost any guild member would turn a blind eye to another's legal transgressions. And it certainly wasn't because Yamashita wanted to give her a chance to "redeem her reputation," as he'd claimed.

"Well, you watch yourself out there, Erin. Be safe."

"I will. Thanks for the heads up, Fionn."

"And call me when you get back. I'll sleep better knowing you're back safe."

Is he flirting with me? Erin couldn't understand what a man like Fionn could see in someone as ugly as herself. "That's really sweet of you. I will. Clear skies."

Fionn nodded. "Clear skies to you too." And then he turned back toward his loader to resume his preflight.

Erin continued on down the ramp towards her plane where mechanics were attaching the empennage to the tail section just above the three engines.